Moral claims, such as valuing vegetarianism or celibacy, that require people to change their usual behavior in a way that decreases their fitness should not be accepted without a compelling reason that addresses the loss to the person so constrained.
Would that have committed the fallacy? Would it still support his point? Should we, because Phil committed this fallacy in answering a question about his article, discard the whole article?
Also note, Phil does not seem to have any problem with a person denying their nature to increase their fitness.
I’m not sure I understand your altered Phil quote either: “What if he had said...” If I do understand it, we still disagree. It’d be helpful if you answered your own questions. Here are a few for you.
Do you believe it is morally good to take actions which increase our fitness? Do you think it is sometimes/always bad to take actions which decrease our fitness?
I intrinsically value my experience of life, and to the extent that it causes others to have life experiences that they similarly value, I find that my fitness has instrumental value. (Though I tend to value memetic fitness over genetic fitness.)
People instinctively have values that promote genetic fitness (though most don’t value genetic fitness itself). One should consider if a loss of genetic fitness reflects a loss to one of these values.
The modified quote does not Appeal to Nature (or if it does, Appealing to Nature is not always wrong). That a behavioral restriction reduces fitness is a reasonable red flag that it may be reducing the person’s actual utility, and I don’t think it is controversial that you should not do arbitrarily. The compelling reason may be that the loss of fitness has nothing to do with anything the person values, but it does promote something else that really is valued. But it is not wrong to desire an explicit reason for changing one’s behavior. Every improvement is a change, but not every change is an improvement.
I think that both the modified and original quote are really a side point to the issue Phil was discussing. What might be more pertinent is that a moral system, whether it is good or not, that causes its followers to decrease their fitness, will be “punished” in that it will become less common than moral systems that promote fitness. This nicely supports the idea that we could promote a good moral system, if we identified one, if we could fix certain parameters so that morality does increase fitness.
And no, we should not dismiss an article because its author made a mistake in answering a question about it. If no one is able to address an objection to a critical part of the article, then we should consider dismissing it.
What if he had said:
Would that have committed the fallacy? Would it still support his point? Should we, because Phil committed this fallacy in answering a question about his article, discard the whole article?
Also note, Phil does not seem to have any problem with a person denying their nature to increase their fitness.
I’m not sure I understand your altered Phil quote either: “What if he had said...” If I do understand it, we still disagree. It’d be helpful if you answered your own questions. Here are a few for you.
Do you believe it is morally good to take actions which increase our fitness?
Do you think it is sometimes/always bad to take actions which decrease our fitness?
Do you take fitness to have terminal or intrinsic moral value?
My answers: “Not necessarily,” “Sometimes,” and “No.”
I’ll try to answer your questions tomorrow, but I’ll have to be asking for clarification.
I intrinsically value my experience of life, and to the extent that it causes others to have life experiences that they similarly value, I find that my fitness has instrumental value. (Though I tend to value memetic fitness over genetic fitness.)
People instinctively have values that promote genetic fitness (though most don’t value genetic fitness itself). One should consider if a loss of genetic fitness reflects a loss to one of these values.
The modified quote does not Appeal to Nature (or if it does, Appealing to Nature is not always wrong). That a behavioral restriction reduces fitness is a reasonable red flag that it may be reducing the person’s actual utility, and I don’t think it is controversial that you should not do arbitrarily. The compelling reason may be that the loss of fitness has nothing to do with anything the person values, but it does promote something else that really is valued. But it is not wrong to desire an explicit reason for changing one’s behavior. Every improvement is a change, but not every change is an improvement.
I think that both the modified and original quote are really a side point to the issue Phil was discussing. What might be more pertinent is that a moral system, whether it is good or not, that causes its followers to decrease their fitness, will be “punished” in that it will become less common than moral systems that promote fitness. This nicely supports the idea that we could promote a good moral system, if we identified one, if we could fix certain parameters so that morality does increase fitness.
And no, we should not dismiss an article because its author made a mistake in answering a question about it. If no one is able to address an objection to a critical part of the article, then we should consider dismissing it.